


Following On

by Loopy456



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt, Poor John, Poor Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:32:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loopy456/pseuds/Loopy456
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>‘Well,’ says Sherlock, throwing the empty bottle down into the foot well. ‘I did think I was going to die.’</i>
</p><p><i>‘You thought </i>you<i> were going to die?’ Donovan chokes out. ‘I knew you were a freak, but are you really so self-centred? I thought he was supposed to be your friend, and instead of worrying about him you’re worrying about yourself? Did you push him in front of you or something?’</i></p><p>When something happens to John, Sherlock doesn't understand why everyone's so surprised that he was worried for his own life.</p><p>
  <b>Written for a prompt on Kink Meme.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on Kink Meme:
> 
> _John gets seriously hurt and has to be sent to the hospital, causing Sherlock to panic a little. The Yard is surprised at Sherlock's behaviour and Sherlock says, "I was scared for my own life." The Yard are disgusted with Sherlock's response._
> 
> _Later at the hospital Sally/Anderson/whoever visits John and tries to warn him off Sherlock again and tells him what Sherlock said. Later on when it's just Sherlock and John, John gets annoyed with Sherlock and says, "For the last time, I told you you're not allowed to kill yourself if I die."_
> 
> Trigger warnings - non-explicit discussions of suicide

Sherlock waits until the ambulance containing John has departed before he allows himself to acknowledge the panic that has been clawing at his skull for over half an hour. 

Panic has been building ever since Sherlock saw, in agonising detail, the raised arm of the man they had been pursuing and the handgun he was holding, ever since he mapped out with horrifying accuracy the trajectory that a bullet fired from the handgun would take and ever since he realised with crushing certainty that there was nothing he could do to prevent that bullet from piercing right through the middle of his friend.

Ignoring the fleeing footsteps, Sherlock had covered the few feet between himself and John’s crumpled body in what had felt like at least five minutes but had actually only taken a second or two. He had not even bothered to take the split second it would have required to see which direction their suspect - now an attempted murderer - had fled in, focused utterly on ripping John’s jacket and shirt off him to get a good look at the wound.

‘John,’ Sherlock had said firmly, while in the process of removing his scarf. ‘John, tell me what to do.’

And John, eyelids fluttering and face deathly pale, had croaked out, ‘Pressure.’

‘I know that,’ Sherlock had replied more snappishly than he intended, pressing his wadded up scarf firmly to the bottom right-hand side of John’s ribcage. ‘Tell me more. Give me _details_.’

John had groaned in obvious agony at the pressure, but had kept his eyes fixed on Sherlock.

‘Don’t let go,’ he had commanded roughly. ‘Don’t let go.’

‘What else?’ Sherlock had asked urgently, because that really hadn’t been worth answering.

‘Ambulance,’ John had said, and Sherlock had fumbled for his phone, hands already sticky and slippery with John’s blood, and called Mycroft.

He hadn’t spoken a word to Mycroft. He had just let it ring and then cancelled the call as soon as his brother had picked up.

Sherlock had sat with John and waited, hands firmly pressed into his friend’s side. He could feel all the physical manifestations of panic and shock developing in his body but he had firmly ignored them and instead focused on what John’s body could tell him.

‘John,’ he had said, after a few minutes of inane chatter designed to keep John awake. ‘John. There’s not enough blood.’

John, struggling to stay conscious, had groaned.

‘They’ll get here… in time, you won’t… won’t have to… drain, drain it,’ he had stammered, and Sherlock had been alarmed to notice how sharply his breathing rate increased just because of that one sentence.

‘How major?’ Sherlock had asked, brisk and business-like because becoming emotional was not going to help John right now.

‘Check my… cap… capillary… capirally refill.’

Sherlock had done so and relayed the time to John.

‘Ri-right,’ John had replied, also trying to remain as business-like as possible and holding up admirably well under the circumstances. ‘Stage… stage two hypo… hypovolaemia… all… already. Fairly… fair major… haemothorax then. Take my… pulse.’

Sherlock had already been doing so.

‘110.’

He had ignored the drop in his stomach as this registered and instead focused on talking rubbish to John while calculating exactly where Mycroft would send the ambulance from, what the response time was likely to be and, due to the typical traffic variations over a 24 hour period in London, how much it would be held up on the roads.

‘Check… che… exit wound,’ John had stammered out, licking his dry lips.

And Sherlock had done it. It had hurt John, who had cried out with every little movement, but he had done it because it was the logical and practical thing to do, and if John had told him to do it then who was he to argue?

‘Minor,’ he had pronounced, as if he were examining a… as if he were with Molly in the mortuary. ‘Definitely a haemothorax, then.’

‘Explains the… breathe… breathing… iss, issues. Only one… one lung.’

‘That, and the fact that you’re in hypovolaemic shock.’

‘And… yes.’

It had been at this point that the ambulance had screeched to a halt in front of them and Sherlock had experienced, for the first time, thankfulness for the tracker that Mycroft had placed within his mobile phone.

Sherlock had relinquished care of John to the paramedics and the doctor they had brought with him, because that was their job and they could do it better than he could. Sherlock had stood leaning against the damp wall of the alleyway and watched them work, because they didn’t need him hovering around and making suggestions that they already knew about. Sherlock had not insisted on going in the ambulance with John, because the ambulance was only so big and he would get in the way of the medical professionals trying to do their job and save John’s life. Sherlock had resisted the temptation, just before the back doors of the ambulance had slammed shut, to call out to them that John was important and needed the best possible care, because they were going to do their best to save him regardless of anything Sherlock might have to say.

All in all, Sherlock is rather proud of the way he conducted himself in the aftermath of John’s shooting but now, as he watches the ambulance vanish around the corner with its flashing blue lights and blaring siren, he sinks down onto the dank, filthy ground, wraps his coat around himself and stares at the opposite wall blankly, dimly recognising and cataloguing, with little interest, the effects of the adrenaline crashing around his body. He only realises that he is not alone when a hand is waved in front of his face. He blinks, and Lestrade swims into view in front of him.

‘Sherlock,’ he says urgently, crouching down. ‘Are you okay? I got a call from your brother. Are you hurt?’

‘John,’ Sherlock replies slowly. The name is beating a tattoo in his head, a refrain. ‘John.’

‘The ambulance has been then?’

_Obviously_ , thinks Sherlock, but he can’t quite get the word out through his lips.

‘Is he okay?’

_Obviously not_ , thinks Sherlock, but again he can’t quite manage to marshal these words into something resembling normal speech.

‘That’s quite a lot of blood, Sir,’ says another voice, and Sherlock registers that Sally Donovan is also present. 

Oh, good.

‘Bloody hell,’ Lestrade mutters under his breath. ‘Sherlock, are you alright?’

‘John,’ says Sherlock.

‘He’s gone in the ambulance, yes?’

Sherlock thinks he manages a nod, and Lestrade seems satisfied.

‘And you’re not hurt?’

Sherlock shakes his head.

‘Well, thank God for that,’ Lestrade says in relief, resting a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. The touch centres Sherlock and everything suddenly snaps into focus.

‘Shot from close range - approximately three metres - with a semi-automatic handgun, probably a SIG,’ says Sherlock rapidly. ‘Bullet went through the bottom of the ribcage on the right-hand side and exited through the back, piercing the pleural cavity and lung on the way through and causing the rapid development of a haemothorax leading to hypovolemic shock. Symptoms included tachypnoea, dyspnoea, tachycardia, delayed capillary refill - ’

‘He’s in shock,’ he hears Donovan say.

‘Of course I’m not in shock,’ he scoffs, pausing in his recalling of the exact details of each of John’s symptoms. He could tell them the exact fluctuations in John’s heart rate.

‘I think you might be, Sherlock,’ Lestrade says gently. ‘Come on, get up and come and sit in the car.’

‘Unmarked?’ Sherlock checks.

‘Yes.’

Sherlock supposes that this would probably be acceptable then. Anyway, he needs to get to hospital to check on John as soon as possible and a car with emergency lights might be just the thing. He gets to his feet and makes his way to Lestrade’s car, sliding into the passenger seat and leaving Sergeant Donovan to sit in the back.

‘Here.’

Lestrade gets into the car too, before reaching into the pocket of his door and forcing a bottle of something into Sherlock’s hand.

‘What’s this?’

‘Sugar,’ replies Lestrade briefly. ‘You’re in shock. Get that down your neck and then we’ll see if we can find out where they’ve taken John.’

‘I’m on it, Sir,’ says Donovan, from the back seat.

‘Nice one.’

Sherlock listens intently to Donovan’s brief phone calls, knowing the instant she locates the correct hospital.

‘He’s been rushed straight into surgery,’ she informs them when she hangs up a few minutes later, as if Sherlock hasn’t heard every word she’s said and most of the ones that were said to her as well. ‘But they think his prognosis is good. They got blood into him on the journey over, managed get a chest drain in almost immediately and then took him straight to theatre. I spoke to the consultant in A&E.’

So that’s who it was, Sherlock had been unsure. He’s happy that John was treated by the best. He’ll be fine. He _will_ be fine.

‘Oh thank God,’ Lestrade exhales heavily. ‘Which hospital?’

Donovan tells him.

‘Right,’ says Lestrade. ‘It won’t take very long to get there. Sherlock?’

Just to stop Lestrade from looking at him sternly and to get him to start the car, Sherlock unscrews the lid of the bottle with hands that shake just a little too much and takes a swig. It’s far too sweet, but he drinks some of it anyway. Adrenaline is still thundering through his system and his heart is beating altogether too fast. Maybe shock is a possibility.

He drains the bottle.

‘Blimey,’ Donovan remarks. ‘I’ve never seen him consume that much liquid at once, even with Dr Watson’s nagging. He must be in shock.’

‘Well,’ says Sherlock, throwing the empty bottle down into the foot well. ‘I did think I was going to die.’

There is a slightly pregnant pause in the car which Sherlock doesn’t understand.

‘Are we going, Lestrade?’ he asks impatiently, cataloguing at the same time his slowing heart and breathing rates and the fact that he’s noticing the chill in the cool night air for the first time in nearly an hour. ‘Because you should probably shut your door if we are.’

‘You thought _you_ were going to die?’ Donovan chokes out, when Lestrade doesn’t respond.

‘Donovan,’ Lestrade says warningly.

‘I mean,’ she continues, paying her boss no heed. ‘I knew you were a freak, but are you really so self-centred? I thought he was supposed to be your friend, and instead of worrying about him you’re worrying about yourself? Did you push him in front of you or something?’

‘ _Donovan_.’

‘But Sir - ’

‘Shut it. Now.’

Lestrade shuts his car door and starts the engine, pulling out of the end of the alleyway and turning left.

Sherlock does not even try and deduce which hospital they’re going to from the choice of three he’s had in his head since about five seconds before John was shot. He sits motionless in the passenger seat and tries to ignore the persistent buzzing in his head.

He should have known that they wouldn’t understand.


	2. Chapter 2

When Sherlock is allowed to see John almost immediately after he has regained consciousness after surgery, he suspects some involvement on Mycroft’s behalf. He wholeheartedly does not care.

‘You look terrible,’ Sherlock tells John bluntly.

‘Cheers,’ John whispers. ‘I don’t feel all that great, if I’m telling the truth.’

‘Unsurprising,’ says Sherlock.

‘Mmm,’ John agrees. And then, ‘Will you pour me some water please?’

Sherlock does so, before he sits down awkwardly on the chair next to John’s bed and wonders how many of the questions clamouring around in his head right now would be deemed inappropriate should he ask them.

‘Prognosis?’ he asks eventually.

John smiles weakly.

‘You probably know more about that then I do,’ he points out, shrugging one shoulder tiredly. ‘Have a look at my chart.’

So Sherlock does. With anyone else he would have just helped himself, but with John it seems impertinent. Interesting.

‘You received a lot of blood,’ he observes.

‘Unsurprising,’ John says drily, and Sherlock tips his head in acknowledgement.

He reads the rest of John’s chart in silence and then looks up.

‘You’ll be fine,’ he says briefly. ‘They did a good job with you.’

‘Oh good,’ John sighs. Then he narrows his eyes. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Me?’ Sherlock frowns. ‘I know you are unobservant, John, but surely it cannot have escaped your notice that I am not the one fresh out of surgery and in a hospital bed.’

‘No,’ John agrees, but doesn’t expand.

Sherlock sits back down and they stay in silence for a few minutes. Sherlock waits until John’s eyes are closed before speaking again.

‘I thought you were going to die.’

John’s eyelids flicker but he doesn’t otherwise react. He’s letting Sherlock say it, even though he must know that Sherlock doesn’t think he’s asleep.

‘I thought you were going to go.’

Neither one of them moves, and Sherlock knows the exact moment when John actually succumbs to exhaustion and drops into sleep.

Sherlock sits by John’s side all night and does not sleep.

***

Lestrade and Donovan come by the next morning to take Sherlock’s statement. They do not arrive with the intention of taking John’s, but John insists that he’s absolutely fine, and anyway what harm can it to when all he’s got to do is talk and he’s lying down and everything?

‘You look dead on your feet, Sherlock,’ Lestrade says, when this is decided. ‘Come and get a coffee with me and Sally can take John’s statement.’

Sherlock allows himself to be escorted from the room because he knows Lestrade isn’t going to take no for an answer. When they’re two floors down Sherlock excuses himself to go to the Gents’, telling Lestrade he will meet him in the café, and doubles back to John’s room. He gets stuck walking up the stairs behind a middle-aged man - knee replacement due to a long-running fungal infection - so by the time he arrives back outside John’s door again, he can tell that John’s statement is over. Not that that’s why he’s snuck back, though.

‘I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, he’s egotistical and self-centred,’ Donovan, good old reliable Sergeant Donovan, is saying. ‘He wasn’t in the slightest bit concerned about you.’

‘Thanks,’ John says lightly, in that tone of voice which he uses when he’s convincing himself that punching someone will not end well. ‘But I think I know him better than you do.’

‘Do you really?’ Donovan sounds sceptical. Sherlock can picture her face perfectly. ‘I don’t think you do, you know. He’s a freak and he’ll always just let you down.’

‘Someone’s a bit bitter,’ John observes casually. Sherlock is imagining his hands curled into fists on top of his blankets.

‘Of course I’m not,’ Donovan scoffs, before seeming to remember in exactly what capacity she is visiting John. ‘I’m only trying to help, Dr Watson, because I think you deserve to know. Sherlock Holmes only cares about one thing in life, and that’s Sherlock Holmes himself. You know he doesn’t care about any of the cases he works on, not really. Not like we all do. Not like you do.’

‘Are you done?’ John asks abruptly.

‘Yes,’ says Donovan, after a short pause. ‘Thank you for your co-operation, Dr Watson. Someone will be - ’

‘I think I know police procedure by now, Sergeant Donovan,’ John interrupts her.

From outside the door, Sherlock almost smiles. So much for manners, John.

There is the tell-tale scraping of chair legs on the floor and Sherlock hears footsteps. He is retreating swiftly into a nearby supply cupboard when the footsteps stop and Donovan speaks again.

‘You should probably know this,’ she says, a little jerkily. ‘He wasn’t concerned about you at all. He didn’t ask once how you were. He was more concerned about the fact that he thought he was going to die.’

There is silence.

‘Say that again,’ John commands slowly. His voice is calm and quiet but must be obeyed.

‘He said that he thought he was going to die,’ Donovan says, spelling it out in the moronic fashion that only she can. 

Sherlock closes his eyes briefly. He’d expected this, but it hadn’t stopped him from hoping.

‘I see,’ John says finally, in a measured tone.

‘See,’ says Donovan triumphantly, evidently thinking that she’s finally made her point. ‘I told you so. He’s a selfish bastard. You could have died and he was only thinking about himself. Are you sure he didn’t push you in front of him?’

‘You can leave now, Sergeant Donovan,’ John tells her.

The supply cupboard door clicks shut just as John’s door opens. As Sherlock listens to Donovan’s footsteps getting gradually quieter until the door at the end of the corridor slams shut behind her, he weighs up the merits of facing John now or later. He eventually opts for now, before John has time to build up a real head of steam which will not do him any good when he’s supposed to be maintaining a decent cardiac output.

John looks up as soon as Sherlock opens the door, his face thunderous. Sherlock regards him dubiously. It appears to be too late for John’s blood pressure.

‘So did Donovan manage to take your statement down correctly or did she display her usual level of incompetence?’ Sherlock enquires, after a tense few seconds.

‘You’re rubbish at small talk,’ John informs him bluntly.

‘That’s because it’s a waste of time.’

‘So why are you trying it now?’

Sherlock raises one eyebrow.

‘You might as well come out with it, John, before you hinder your recovery too much by bottling it up.’

John’s expression could shatter glass and Sherlock, leaning up against the door, gives a little involuntary shiver which he hates.

‘I’ve told you before, Sherlock,’ he says slowly, in a low voice which Sherlock hates even more than his own involuntary reactions. ‘You are not allowed to kill yourself if I die.’

There is a short silence while Sherlock considers possible answers.

‘But I wouldn’t be,’ he says staunchly, settling on a reply. ‘I’d just be, you know, following on.’

‘Sherlock,’ John snaps. ‘No. That’s not how it works.’

‘I think you need some more morphine, John,’ Sherlock says swiftly, trying out another possible response. ‘Shall I call the nurse?’

‘Don’t you dare,’ John’s gaze pins Sherlock to the spot. ‘You listen to me, Sherlock Holmes. Should something happen to me - and let’s hope it doesn’t - you are not going to do anything else except hunt down my murderer in your usual directed fashion and then get on with your life and go on being brilliant. If you do anything else, then I’ll kill you. Do you hear me?’

‘That’s a little counterintuitive,’ Sherlock points out smoothly.

‘Shut up,’ says John firmly. ‘You are not wasting your life on my account, Sherlock. I’d never forgive you.’

‘You wouldn’t be alive to forgive me,’ Sherlock answers, quite reasonably he thinks.

‘How do you think you would have felt,’ John interrupts him suddenly. ‘How would you have felt if you’d come back from the dead and found that I’d killed myself?’

The idea goes so against Sherlock’s inner psyche that he almost retches.

‘John,’ he says stupidly. ‘John. John, I - ’

He can’t get any other words past his internal refrain of ‘John, John, JohnJohnJohn’.

‘How would it have felt?’ John asks mercilessly, his eyes hard.

Sherlock’s head spins.

‘John, I can’t,’ he gasps. ‘Don’t, you can’t, you - ’

‘There you go,’ says John, eyes fixed on Sherlock’s. ‘That inner revulsion you’re feeling right now - the feeling that you could throw up and you want to gouge your nails up your arms - that’s the how I feel when I think of you killing yourself because I’m dead.’

‘But I came back,’ says Sherlock desperately. ‘I came back for you. You wouldn’t be coming back.’

‘And if you’d died while you were away, would it have made it any different if I’d killed myself?’ John asks. ‘Would you not have minded because you wouldn’t be coming back?’

‘Of course I would have minded. It would rather have defeated the point of me throwing myself off St Bart’s.’

‘Exactly.’

Sherlock frowns.

‘I don’t get it.’

‘You cannot kill yourself if I die, Sherlock,’ John says firmly. ‘I am not allowing it. I am saying no. I will never forgive you if you do.’

‘You won’t be around to stop me.’

The words are childish and they are out of Sherlock’s mouth before he can stop them.

‘You’re not going to do it.’

‘Then you’ll have to not die.’

There is a pause. Sherlock thinks he can almost see a smile trying to sneak its way onto John’s face.

‘I’ll do my best,’ John promises eventually, letting the smile make its presence known. ‘But if I have to break my promise, then you must not blame yourself and you must not follow me. Who will catch the people responsible for my death if you’re not here to do it for me?’

‘A good point,’ Sherlock concedes, head on one side. ‘The incompetent individuals at Scotland Yard would never manage it, although I’m sure Lestrade would do his best.’

‘There you go, you see,’ John says, raising his eyebrows. ‘I need you here.’

Sherlock quirks one eyebrow up.

‘And I need you with me.’


End file.
